Top Web Content Writing Rules

Find out why keeping your website up-to-date could save your company. And what happens when website content is out of date?

What’s the point of keeping websites up-to-date?

Some might say “Great - I’ve got my website designed and built and it’s gone live so I don’t need to do anything more. I can just sit back and wait for the enquiries/sales/bookings/calls to roll in.”

No! This is not correct and woe-betide those who don’t feed their website fresh content to keep it up to date. But, believe it or not, after investing in their website so many businesses then just leave it unattended, unloved and very quickly the content becomes out of date.

Here are a few great examples of what happens when a website is left unattended. (Actually I’ve got loads of examples but here are two to start you off).

Content is King - Example One

Yesterday I was on a mission to find a nice pub/restaurant in Bradford-on-Avon. So after searching in Google maps, I found a suitably positioned establishment but the photograph showing was of a run-down unloved building with weeds growing around the front door. I assumed I had picked a wrong ‘un but as I’m nosey I visited their website and to my surprise their website looked all shiny and new. Phew! This could turn out to be OK after all and become our regular! Their site home page had a big notice saying they’d opened in July (no mention which year though). I then looked at their menus. Oh dear… they were all over a year out of date. I wasn’t going to waste time phoning them to ask if they had any 2016 menus or (more embarrassingly for them) gone out of business.

I assumed the restaurant had gone out of business and was the run down, unloved restaurant with weeds growing around the front door that showed in Google maps. So I closed their website and found an up to date website of a restaurant 10 minutes away from them (most probably their competitor!)

Conclusion:

This restaurant may have been fabulous but it’s a moot point because their website was out of date which screamed “we don’t care”. Your customers will assume the same if you have out of date information on your website. There is no excuse and the next bit will sound harsh but if you don’t care about your own business, your customers will assume you don’t care about them either.

Content is King - Example Two

A vehicle restoration company had a website (excellent – top marks!). However, (and this is when they lose all their credibility online) they had price lists on their website dated 2014 and a Happy Easter message...in June!

Website Content

Why would you want to advertise out-of-date information on your website? Your website should be the primary source of marketing, PR and advertising which means it should be the biggest area to spend advertising budgets. Your website is more important than you may think.

Like my saying goes: “A Website is for life, not just for Christmas” (groan, sorry)

Why bother with my website?

You probably may (or may not) know there are a lot of factors that enable a website to be successful. For instance it makes a difference how your website is designed, built and hosted i.e.

• Is the website build WAI and W3C compliant
• Is it designed for your target market
• Has it been built using clean SEO friendly code that is up-to-date or is it a WordPress website needing upgrades
• Is it responsive (mobile friendly)
• Is it hosted on servers located in the UK, that aren't shared with hacked opensource websites

But let’s assume you have employed experienced website developers like aprompt where all these points are standard. The next bit for a CMS website is up to you – keep your content fresh. If your services don’t change then get us to add a Blog to your site so you can add content quickly and easily to share advice/tips/case studies, etc.

If you don’t have time to create content, ask us to create website content for you or send us your text and we’ll add it for you. aprompt have website management options available – there will be one that suits you, so contact us to arrange a free website content consultation.

Written by Kirsty Paget